The picture shows a pastel drawing created between 1693 and 1698 by
Maria Clara Eimmart, German astronomer and illustrator, who died in 1707 at the age of 31. The drawing is based on an engraving by the famous Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who was the first to realize that the strange growths on either side of Saturn formed a ring separated from the body of the planet. Eimmart’s drawing wasn’t simply reporting what Huygens saw, but also collected the observations of more than ten astronomers, thus providing a notable document on how Saturn was seen at the end of '600, the first century in which humans scrutinized the sky not only with the naked eye, but with the aid of rudimentary, yet effective, telescopes.
